


i would like to thank the judges

by fuscience



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-10
Updated: 2014-03-10
Packaged: 2018-01-15 05:16:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1292767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuscience/pseuds/fuscience
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one will tell Lydia it's her fault, but she knows it all the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i would like to thank the judges

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to get this up before tomorrow's episode. Sorry!

Stiles is dead.

 

He's cold, with dark half moons under his eyes that will forever scar his pale complexion. The lines across his body, fat, ugly stitches that will show anyone where his vital organs were ripped out. They will show where and why he died. Why as in he died because there was no longer a heart to pump nutrients, to shuttle vital resources between organs. Not why as in a dark spirit chose him because he was human, because he was the weakest, because his tether was the weakest.

 

No one will tell Lydia it's her fault, but she knows it all the same.

 

Her faith in him could not bring Stiles back, it wasn't strong enough to keep him connected and anchored. She couldn't save him even when she wanted to.

 

_Him and I. I and him._

_We had good fun until the end._

 

Lydia stands in the hallway and loudly reminds them all she’s not the crazy one. Allison laughs weakly because, really, they're all a little insane now and when Stiles corrects her statement, Lydia bites back her ire at him.

 

"Mmmm hmmm." she hums, "Of course, Stiles."

 

Scott stops suddenly, forcing Lydia to stop browsing on her phone before she runs into his broad back. Allison has turned and walked away from them, stride forceful and stiff with her knuckles clenched white on the strap of her bag.

 

"What's her problem?" 

 

Scott dodges the question, never looking her in the eye

 

_His ashes grey, his outlook bleak,_

_made a promise, I couldn't keep._

 

Stiles drags her into the locker room, panicked and flustered ( _not to the point of an attack, but merely to the point he wants to consult Lydia's intellect_ ). She's reminded of when _she_ dragged _him_ in, when she pulled and pushed and brought him back from over the precipice of full-on despair. Lydia remembers his lips, warm and soft, and the soft exhale of air that smelled like peppermint.

 

"Scott won't talk to me."

 

Lydia snorts at the broken lilt to his voice, like their little ultimate bromance is the end all be all of his world.

 

"I'm sure he's not ignoring you. Scott isn't the type."

 

Stiles' lip curls in exasperation, long fingers spread wide before her in frustration.

 

"I know that! You think I don't know that? What I don't know is what I did to make him mad."

 

Lydia wants to tell him that maybe Scott's a little uncomfortable with dead Stiles. That the cold blue skin and lack of a heartbeat is a little off putting, but Stiles is breaking down at the loss of Scott's friendship, so she says nothing. His fingers send a chill up her spine when she reaches out to entwine his hand with hers, filling the spaces between.

  
  
  


_He pulled, I pushed, until he fell._

_And down he went, into the well._

 

It's three o’ clock and that means Lacrosse. Lydia sits on the bleachers and watches Stiles swerve and swing, ball flying into the net before he goes to stand back in the drill line. She doesn't cheer, but, when he looks over for approval, she waves.

 

Twenty minutes in Danny puts his hand together in a T and the coach blows the whistle, so the other players stop. The goalie jogs up and confers for a moment with Finstock before making a bee line over to Lydia's seat.

 

"Lydia." His eyes are tired and she remembers that Ethan is gone, another name to write on the board of people who left Danny behind. "Why are you here, Lydia?"

 

The question is a quiet sigh, like he already knows the answer and really he should she thinks with a waspish edge.

 

"I'm watching practice."

 

"Who are you watching Lydia?" She doesn't like the way he says her name, doesn't like the implication that shes here for someone specific. Stiles stand curiously next to Greenburg, eyebrows raised in question.

 

Danny looks over his shoulder to see what she's staring at and his lips thin out in defeat, before he turns to her again.

 

"Go home Lydia." His voice cracks at the end, and when he goes back to the field, she leaves. Danny is her friend, but there's a bubble of anger in the pit of her stomach when Lydia remembers the way his words broke. She can't really explain the sudden fury.

 

_Deep and Dark, Dark and Deep,_

_Yet, never could I make the leap._

 

She comes to his house to study, knocking on the heavy oak severely and waiting to hear the clumsy crashes that normally accompany Stiles sprint for the door. The welcome mat reads ' _come back with a warrant_ ' and Lydia wonders who chose it out. The sheriff opens the door.

 

"Lydia?"

 

"Sheriff Stilinski." She bites her lip, " I'm here to study."

 

"Oh." He doesn't open the door any wider, just stares at her like he's seen a ghost. "Oh! Come - come in."

 

Stiles' dad is all fumbling fingers and shaky hands trying to push the door open further - maybe it's a genetic thing, an inherent clumsiness in the Stilinski genes.

 

Lydia can feel him watch her as he walks to the stairs, wondering why the hell Stiles didn't come get the door.

 

There he stands though, at the top of the stairs, waving her up enthusiastically and she choose to ignore the eyes of his dad, shattered and hopeless, to focus on the boy waiting for her.

 

_screaming ‘till her heart gave out,_

_until she knew without a doubt_

 

They are in his room. Lydia works through a book on Computer programming, with the inherent desire to add several digital languages to her repertoire and Stiles is on his laptop, sitting just out of her frame of vision, but she can hear the creak of the computer chair when he sits back in thought, and the click of the keyboard when he's tracking down some answer, and the hitch in his breath when he finds it.

 

The bed smells like him, pine and teenage boy and if she enjoys the scent a little, Lydia will never tell anyone. ( _She keeps some of his shirts in the back of his closet, never washed, but eventually those disappear as well_ )

 

She’s standing in the doorway of his room, stuck between leaving and not, when Stiles leans in to kiss her and she lets him steal her breath away.

 

She read the Harry Potter books once, liked them, but at four years old everything is a little bit more magical.

 

This is what she imagined the Dementor’s kiss felt like.  Cold and lifeless, drawing the souls from your body and all the warmth that came from living. Its a dark and deep feeling that leaves her reeling from the absence, the void in the pit of her heart. Its a virus entrenching itself in her soul, slowly spreading sick tendrils through the rest of her. Stiles pulls away and Lydia trembles and shivers, like death is trailing his bony hands up and down her spine. When He opens his eyes, the not quite dead boy who loves her, and he looks sad.

 

"I think I should go." His blackened lips crumble at the edges, veins of blue sprinkle his skin like he is both a hundred years old and young.

 

She touches him, the warm palm of her hand resting on his cheek, flushed from the cold, taking on that red pallor that skin attains when you've played in snow too long, or left your gloves at home on a winter day.

 

Her lips ghost across Stiles' mouth and another shudder runs through her body before Lydia presses his mouth to hers as hard as possible. If she gives enough he will stay, his cheeks will blush, his skin will bloom, his heart will move.

 

"I tried." Lydia cries, salty tears slipping over the spaces between their lips. "I tried."

 

Stiles smiles then, wistful and bright.

 

"I know." He says. _I love you_ he thinks.

 

Stiles doesn't fade, doesn't collapse or decompose at the admission of failure. He wraps his arms around her and strokes the strawberry blonde hair he loved, until the sobs quiet.

 

When Lydia finds the courage to look up, Stiles will be gone.

 

_His tethered soul, it came to end,_

_when I let go of him._

 

The sheriff stands in the doorway, waiting until Lydia has calmed enough to acknowledge his presence. The bed dips and the sheets wrinkle further as he sits next to her and his hands are rough and calloused from years of handling guns, but they are warm and feel a little like Stiles’ when he places it over her own trembling one. His voice is hoarse and soft - like he’s been crying with her ( _she knows he has_ ).

 

“I miss him too.”

 

It’s a confession and she’s tired and and _so, so_ incredibly heartbroken.

 

Stiles’ dad holds her tighter and Lydia begins to grieve.

  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
